Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Evaluation Of Several Pre-Clinical Tools For Identifying Characteristics Associated With Limb Bone Fracture In Thoroughbred Racehorses, Anthony Nicholas Corsten

Open Access Theses

Catastrophic skeletal fractures in racehorses are devastating not only to the animals, owners and trainers, but also to the perception of the sport in the public eye. The majority of these fatal accidents are unlikely to be due to chance, but are rather an end result failure from stress fractures. Stress fractures are overuse injuries resulting from an accumulation of bone tissue damage over time. Because stress fractures are pathological, it is possible that overt fractures can be predicted and prevented. In this study, third metacarpals (MC3) from 33 thoroughbred racehorse comprised of 8 non-fractured controls and 25 horses that …

The Impact Of Tickling Rats On Human-Animal Interactions And Rat Welfare, Megan Renee Lafollette

Open Access Theses

Rats initially fear humans which can lead to negative affect, poor welfare, and difficult handling. Also, modeling and measuring positive affect states in rats can pose an additional challenge. Heterospecific play, or “tickling,” is a handling habituation technique that mimics rat rough-and-tumble play that is being used to study positive affect. It can also be used to reduce fear of human, improve welfare, and elicit a positive affect state. However, current studies implementing the technique in laboratory rats use a wide variety of protocols to achieve differential results. Unlike in laboratory environment, pet store rats experience high levels of novelty …

Innovative Novel Immunotherapies For The Treatment Of Glioblastoma Multiforme, Salma Salem

Open Access Theses

Glioblastoma Multiforme GBM is a very aggressive type of malignant brain tumors that affects peoples’ lives. The diffusive, infiltrative, and metastatic behaviour of GBM is the major reason for the disease recurrence. The morphological and immunohistological characteristics of Central Nervous System (CNS) tumors including GBM are heterogeneous. GBM is either primary (de novo) or secondary to low-grade astrocytomas.

Current treatment options include surgery, radiotherapy, and temozolomide chemotherapy have not achieved any improvement in success rates over the past decades. The survival time reached by GBM patients was approximately 12 months only after being treated with radiotherapy alone without temozolomide. However, …

A Dose Distribution Study Of Uranyl Nitrate In Zebrafish Using Liquid Scintillation And Passivated Implanted Planar Silicon Detectors, Lee A. Alleman

Open Access Theses

Standard curves for a Perkin Elmer TriCarb 2800 liquid scintillation detector (LSC) and a Ludlum 3030p Passivated Implanted Planar Silicon detector have been developed and utilized for studying the dose distribution of depleted uranium (DU) within zebrafish. The DU source was crystallized uranyl nitrate (N2O8U•6H2O) solution, normally used for staining in electron microscopy with a manufactured average specific activity of 0.3 uCi/g. Zebrafish, both larvae and adults, were exposed to three different mass concentrations, dissected, dissolved and counted using an LSC. The counts were compared to the standard curve correlating the measured activity to that of the mass absorbed. It …

Design, Optimization, And Characterization Of Novel Polymer-Based Formulations For Controlled Release Of Drugs, Mario Alberto Cano Vega

Open Access Theses

Pharmaceutical products are a key aspect of treatment and prevention of disease. For example, dibenzazepine (DBZ) is a drug that has proved to be useful for the treatment of obesity while progesterone is a common drug for hormonal replacement therapy in women. However, administration of these drugs by conventional dosage forms offers little control over the drug distribution and concentration in the body and often result in unintended adverse consequences on other cells/tissues.

Recent advances in nanotechnology and polymer science have enabled the design and development of controlled release systems that would allow spatiotemporal delivery of drugs with improved efficacy. …

The Effects Of Scarring On Face Recognition, Kevin J. Chan

Open Access Theses

The focus of this research is the effects of scarring on face recognition. Face recognition is a common biometric modality implemented for access control operations such as customs and borders. The recent report from the Special Group on Issues Affecting Facial Recognition and Best Practices for their Mitigation highlighted scarring as one of the emerging challenges. The significance of this problem extends to the ISO/IEC and national agencies are researching to enhance their intelligence capabilities. Data was collected on face images with and without scars, using theatrical special effects to simulate scarring on the face and also from subjects that …

Evaluating The Physical Welfare Of Dogs In Commercial Breeding Facilities In The United States, Moriah J. Hurt

Open Access Theses

Despite high levels of public concern, the state of commercial breeding (CB) dog welfare is largely unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize the physical welfare of dogs in CB facilities and their environment in Indiana. This study specifically aimed 1) to characterize dog foot health in CB facilities as a function of the length of time dogs were housed on a given flooring substrate, 2) to characterize visual dog body cleanliness and visual kennel cleanliness as a function of the flooring substrate, 3) to determine the efficacy of kennel cleaning procedures and 4) to characterize the dog dental and …

Manufacturer Perspectives On Content Transparency And Material Health In The Us Building Products Industry, Alexandra A. Muller

Open Access Theses

Flawed U.S. federal regulation of chemicals has resulted in a materials market that undervalues human and environmental health in favor of the more traditional attributes of price, performance and aesthetics. In the building products industry, global, dynamic supply chains and proprietary information concerns further complicate the task of assessing the material health of products.

Voluntary material health programs in the green building industry are intended to incentivize the manufacture and selection of safer products by getting companies to gather and assess ingredient, hazard and risk information from their supply chain. Building product manufacturers considered early adopters of the main material …

The Interactive Effects Of Pesticide Exposure And Infectious Disease On Amphibian Hosts, Katherine M. Pochini

Open Access Theses

Natural systems are home to a multitude of natural and anthropogenic stressors, which draw an array of effects on ecological communities. While these effects have been investigated individually, it is important, given the routine co-occurrence of these stressors, to understand their interactive effects. Pesticide exposure and infectious disease are two common, co-occurring stressors that each have documented detrimental effects on species and, as evidence suggests, may have interactive effects. Moreover, existing research suggests that these interactive effects are highly context dependent, eliciting different results based on species, disease agent, toxin, and environment. Given the variability with which species may experience …

A Study Of Applications Of 3d Animation For Emergency Medicine Pedagogy, Huilong Zheng

Open Access Theses

There is ample precedent for the use of 3D animation in education, though little research on specific applications in the field of medicine. An experiment was carried out to assess the suitability of 3D animation for educational purposes in emergency medicine courses. Two groups of experimental participants were assessed on their ability to respond to three emergency medical situations in simulated test scenarios. Both groups received equivalent information on how to treat the three different medical emergencies. The control group received the information in traditional lecture format. The experimental group instead received the information from a set of 3D animations. …

Impact Of Peer Relationship And Exposure To Violence On Posttraumatic Stress For Children At Risk For Maltreatment, Aura Ankita Mishra

Open Access Theses

Post-traumatic Stress (PTS) symptomology includes ruminating thoughts and feelings around trauma, inability to feel and express emotions, and avoidance of things related to the traumatic event (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Children and youth exposed to child maltreatment (abuse and neglect) are at higher risk of experiencing PTS. Extra-familial support, including peer support can reduce post-traumatic stress among youth (Pina et al., 2008). In the present study, Witnessing, Victimization, and Both Witnessing and Victimization due to Exposure to In-Home Violence and Peer Relationship Quality are evaluated as to their relative impact on PTS for children at risk for child maltreatment. Peer …

Deficits In Sound Pattern Sequencing In Children With Specific Language Impairment: A Networks Approach, Sara J. Benham

Open Access Theses

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) demonstrate primary deficits in morphosyntax, which has served as the central theme in theoretical and clinical approaches. However, a striking number of children with SLI also exhibit speech sound deficits, characterized both by increased error patterns and by high levels of variability. These speech sound deficits have been under-studied and are not explicitly tied to accounts of SLI. In the present study, theoretical approaches drawn from dynamical systems and sequence learning are used to address speech production learning in children with SLI. Standard approaches to sound accuracy and variability and articulatory variability are integrated …

Mhealth To Improve The Diet Among Low-Income Populations Enrolled In An Established U.S. Nutrition Program: Design And Rationale Of A Randomized Controlled Trial, Lukas T. Ingersoll

Open Access Theses

Aim: To describe the theoretical basis, and implementation of a randomized controlled trial to improve the diet and nutrition of low-income families in Indiana.

Background: Changing difficult behaviors requires more than education. Beyond education, people benefit from counseling that focuses on increasing motivation and confidence, assistance with overcoming barriers, identifying social support, and creating specific action plans. Widespread use of short-message services (SMS), commonly known as text messaging, provides one potential tool for researchers to help individuals change difficult behaviors.

Although promising, one of the limitations with current SMS interventions is that most have relied on providing reminder texts at …

Densified Collagen-Fibril Biomaterials For Bone Tissue Engineering, Lauren E. Watkins

Open Access Theses

Millions of craniofacial bone defects occur annually as a result of trauma, congenital defects, disease, or tooth extraction. When present in the oral cavity, these defects are associated with adverse impacts on speech, mastication, and aesthetics. Thus, there is a clinical need for interventional strategies to restore and preserve alveolar bone mass to improve the success of future treatment options intended to reestablish functionality and aesthetics. Guided bone regeneration using bone grafts and a membrane represent the current standard of care for repairing alveolar bone defects, but face a number of limitations related to resorption time and structural integrity. Improvements …

Using Security Risk Analysis: Is The Bring Your Own Device Policy Becoming A Liability Risk Within Healthcare?, Lee Alexander Cavett

Open Access Theses

Using computer simulation modeling, this research examined the problems contributing to data breaches within healthcare industry. The study attempted to answer two questions: 1) is the Bring Your Own Device policy becoming a liability risk within hospitals causing an increase in data breaches and 2) is there a lower risk compared to using wired desktops. An iPad was the primary focused device as one of many Bring Your Own Devices. The study used a randomly generated sample of an approximate 2,700 patients, one nurse and doctor on a eight hour work-day within the clinic (eight A.M five P.M) considering a …

Alternative Regulation Of Myc In Lung Cancer, Patrick N. Backman

Open Access Theses

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, accounting for 27% of all cancer induced deaths1. In an attempt to create a effective targeted therapy for the treatment of lung cancer, a strategy used to treat an activated KrasG12D/+;p53 R172H/+ transgenic lung cancer mouse model was to deliver a known tumor suppressive microRNA (miRNA) to stop tumor growth. The tumor suppressive miRNA let-7 was lentivirally delivered in the form of its primary transcript, pri-let-7a-1, and resulted in increased lung size and inflammation compared to lungs exposed to a control lentivirus. It was identified …

Information Seeking And Concern For Mental Well-Being, Cynthia K. Lindley

Open Access Theses

Mental health concerns among college students are quite prevalent, but the help-seeking practices of this population are hindered by a variety of barriers. Help-seeking for mental health concerns in its earliest (and most common) form is ultimately information-seeking, which has been identified as a process with specific predictors that has the potential to lend structure to the myriad help-seeking barriers and facilitators. In an effort to apply and extend the Theory of Motivated Information Management (TMIM; Afifi & Weiner, 2004), the current study asked college students experiencing concerns for their mental well-being to report details of their circumstances. The results …

Attitudes Toward A Cancer Coalition: Implications For Coalition Health Communication, Chervin Lam Shih Kian

Open Access Theses

A cancer coalition is a communication hub for cancer patients that may help address cancer by promoting health and mitigating health issues. Attitudes toward a cancer coalition may be important in determining whether or not patients participate or utilize a coalition. However, little is known about the attitudes of cancer patients toward a cancer coalition, its services, and toward participation. This study addresses this gap by investigating these attitudes. The results encourage the development of a cancer coalition in states that do not yet have a coalition. Effective coalition health communication was found to be a pivotal service that cancer …

Understanding Representations Of Impulsivity In Dimensional Models Of Personality Pathology, Sarah Ann Griffin

Open Access Theses

Impulsivity is an individual difference that impacts many aspects of an individual's functioning; however, there as of yet has been no consensus on a single definition of impulsivity across the various fields that study it and its related outcomes. In fact, research at this point predominantly supports the idea that "impulsivity" is actually a multi-faceted construct comprised of multiple lower-order traits, but there is little agreement on what those lower-order facets should be. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the conceptualization of complex trait impulsivity within two new omnibus measures of maladaptive personality in terms of both …

The Impact Of Care Coordination On Community Pharmacist-Delivered Medication Therapy Management, Stephanie A. Gernant

Open Access Theses

Background: Care coordination is imperative to successful patient outcomes. However, community pharmacists are commonly excluded from health information exchange during care coordination. One of the ways pharmacists deliver care, through medication therapy management (MTM), could be optimized if pharmacists engaged in care coordination through review of unedited patient medical records in preparation for a section of the MTM, the comprehensive medication review (CMR).^ Methods: This was a non-blinded randomized controlled trial undertaken within the Medication Safety Research network of Indiana, also known as RxSafeNet. RxSafeNet is a community pharmacy practice based research network. Pharmacists were randomized to deliver CMR’s to …

Physical Actvity In Pregnant Rat Dams Reduces Mammary Tumor Formation In Offspring, Leon Clah

Open Access Theses

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer and a leading cause of cancer death among women. Lifestyle factors such as physical activity and diet play a role in attenuating the incidence of breast cancer. Current research is beginning to show that exercise during pregnancy can convey long term health benefits to offspring. In light of these studies, the goal of this project was to determine if maternal physical activity during pregnancy could lead to reduced mammary tumor development in female offspring. Towards this goal, female Sprague Dawley rats were divided into two groups, sedentary and exercise, with the exercise …

Effects Of Moderate-Level Sound Exposure On Behavioral Thresholds In Chinchillas, Maria Sandra Carbajal De Nava

Open Access Theses

Normal audiometric thresholds following noise exposure have generally been considered as an indication of a recovered cochlea and intact peripheral auditory system, yet recent animal work has challenged this classic assumption. Moderately noise-exposed animals have been shown to have permanent loss of synapses on inner hair cells (IHCs) and permanent damage to auditory nerve fibers (ANFs), specifically the low-spontaneous rate fibers (low-SR), despite normal electrophysiological thresholds. Loss of cochlear synapses, known as cochlear synaptopathy, disrupts auditory-nerve signaling, which may result in perceptual speech deficits in noise despite normal audiometric thresholds. Perceptual deficit studies in humans have shown evidence consistent with …

Fuel Choice, Acute Respiratory Infection And Child Growth In Uganda, Onyekachi U. Aghasili

Open Access Theses

This thesis seeks to explain the relationship between a household's choice of fuel and the health and nutrition outcomes of children below the age of 5 in Uganda. The first objective is to examine the association between the choice of fuel and the incidence of acute respiratory infection (ARI). The second objective is to measure the relationship between choice of fuel, ARI and nutrition outcomes of children. ^ I use data from the 2006 and 2011 Uganda Demographic and Health Surveys (UDHS). The total number of observations is 4,463. Data indicate that 94% of rural households in the DHS sample …

Baylisascaris Spp. In Non-Raccoon Procyonid Hosts And Assessment Of Potential Risk Of Human Exposure, Max Carlin Parkanzky

Open Access Theses

Baylisascaris procyonis (Bp) is a large roundworm of the common raccoon (Procyon lotor) which serves as the definitive host. Bp is an important cause of clinical larva migrans, including severe neurological disease, across numerous taxa including humans. Other procyonids, as well as occasionally dogs, can act as definitive hosts for this or other Baylisascaris spp. Many of these animals are becoming more common as household pets, posing a risk to people who come in contact with these animals. We have investigated whether patent Baylisascaris spp. infection exists in captive non-raccoon procyonids and if humans who contact these animals …

Consumer Inferences Of Corporate Social Responsibility (Csr) Claims On Packaged Foods, Gaeul Kim

Open Access Theses

With the growing public demands in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of the food industry, CSR claims have begun to appear on food packages, as companies started communicating their CSR initiatives to consumers. Although food packages emerged as an important CSR communication tool, consumers' processing of CSR claims and the effects of these claims on product evaluations still remain unknown. In this regard, the present study carries two important research questions. First, do non-health/nutrition-related CSR claims influence consumers' product evaluations, such as perceived health benefits or tastes? If so, how does the effect of CSR claims differ by type of CSR …

Associations Between Tooth Loss And Ischemic Heart Disease And Stroke In A National Cohort, Tiina Jaagosild

Open Access Theses

The association between oral health and cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been under vigorous investigation during the last decades. Consensus documents have stated the independent relationship between periodontal disease and subsequent tooth loss and CVD. Associations between tooth loss and chronic coronary heart disease (CHD), myocardial infarction (MI), and stroke have not been evaluated separately in a single nationwide cohort. This cross-sectional study used self-reported data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2012 and was conducted to evaluate the association between the number of teeth lost due to caries or periodontal disease and the prevalence of CVD. The final cohort …

Evaluating Breast Cancer Stem Cell Response To Antiangiogenic Therapy, Connor J. Holloway

Open Access Theses

Angiogenic inhibitors function by blocking tumor cell signals used to recruit host tissue vasculature to the tumor site, thereby depriving the cancer of the nutriment needed for further expansion. The development and implementation of angiogenic inhibitors in conjunction with standard chemotherapy agents has increased progression-free survival but not overall patient survival. It is hypothesized that chronic exposure to large doses of AAT drugs worsens hypoxic conditions within the tumor mass, selectively stimulating aggressive cancer stem cell populations to grow and proliferate. ^ In this study, the expression of the CSC biomarkers ALDH1, DLL1, and EpCAM were evaluated in breast cancer …

Health-Related Coping Strategies Among Korean Immigrant Women Living In The U.S., Su-Joung Shim

Open Access Theses

Immigrants are known to experience enormous culture transitions that can affect their health. Depressive symptoms are characteristic of immigrants in general, and women immigrants in particular often suffer from mental health problems along with health-related issues. The qualitative study presented here relates the health-related experiences of Korean women immigrants living in a hosting country, the U.S. in this study, with the purpose of exploring their health-related issues and coping strategies.^ Qualitative research methods based on grounded theory were employed to explore the health-related coping strategies of Korean immigrant women in the U.S. A nonprobability, purposive, and snowball sampling method was …

Differences In Brainstem Level Encoding Of Am And Fm Signals In A Rat Model For Dyslexia, Stephen Anthony Chabot

Open Access Theses

Developmental dyslexia is a language learning disorder that affects a significant portion of the population. Many subjects who suffer from dyslexia show auditory processing deficits as children, some of which persist into adulthood, which impair their ability to learn one or more aspects of language. There is evidence that some types of training can correct the auditory processing deficits and bring the subject to a normal reading or speaking proficiency for their age group. One common rodent model for dyslexia is the cortical freeze lesion model. This model induces a lesion in the rat cortex similar to the microgyria present …

Designing A Sustainable And Transferable Inventory Management System For Small Healthcare Facilities, Shree Frazier

Open Access Theses

Managing the costs of supplies within healthcare facilities has been a task that has plagued the health industry for many years. Many facilities are accustomed to using a par system approach. This involves bringing an inventory item to an amount sufficient for daily operation. This method often requires daily inspection by a healthcare worker, which reduces his/her time spent performing value added tasks. Employees at small healthcare facilities have multiple responsibilities, therefore they cannot afford to spend much time on inventory management. A proposed approach is the Kanban method, which allows for strict monitoring of inventory items without the need …